Stability of plane Poiseuille flow of slightly viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

The title subject has been examined by the author in a series of papers (Cousins, 1970, 1972a, b), and the assumptions and principal results of those papers are discussed here. The work is motivated by the phenomenon evinced in fluid flow situations, of turbulent drag reduction by certain polymer additives. From a survey of experimental work it is clear that molecular elongation plays an important role in reducing drag by suppressing transverse motions. This effect may be interpreted as a normal stress effect in a continuum theory. A second-order fluid, which is a simple model exhibiting such a property, is used in a linear analysis of disturbances to planePoiseuille flow. Unlike theNewtoniăn case Squire's theorem is not valid (Lockett, 1969a) and a three-dimensional analysis is required. The viscoelastic terms are in general destabilising. Under certain conditions the first growing disturbance will propagate at an angle to the basic flow, giving a longitudinal vortex structure close to the channel boundaries not present at the onset of instability in aNewtonian fluid. The analysis is extended to finite-amplitude disturbances by introducing a time-dependent amplitude, but calculations are here confined to the simpler two-dimensional case. Disturbances which would decay under linear theory may in fact grow provided the initial amplitude is sufficiently large. A threshold amplitude for instability is found as a function ofReynolds number. The viscoelastic terms are again found to be destabilising. Finally, a further viscoelastic property, that of stress relaxation, is introduced through an integral representation of the stress. A linear analysis is developed and stress relaxation is also shown to be a destabilising influence.